timelines
by antarcticas
Summary: "you rule the world" — this is the story of a family. / a collection of prose about the skywalkers and the gorgeous universe they create and break apart.
1. a second of your time

bullets ricochet like it's nothing. he asks for one more time — one more hole in his chest, one more time, he needs to feel alive. it's always one more credit, one more journey, one more headrush and never-enough.

golden girl, you rule the world. you have been raised with your head held high despite the metal weighing it down and that is how you live now: late nights and starsets, repeating the radio signals. life is rough when you cry jewels and bleed for planets.

you have won but you are losing — they think you & your iron fist have secured the galaxy but they do not know the truth. the screams, the senate, the blasters against your skull when it is too much. you love a loaded gun and he won't lie down. you can see the end of the world in your son's eyes. you make a choice, and then another, and this is all wrong.

royalty of blood, of name, of force. you are everything and you are nothing, and you are crushed under the weight of ruling the world. remember the stolen kisses at the edge of the world? you were gorgeous when the universe was collapsing, they always are.


	2. not a girl's place

sometimes she wonders simple thoughts. things about herself and why she is here and why they are here and why they are breathing and existing like this. sometimes she wonders about other things, like who she was and who she is and who she wants to be.

she is mostly curious about her place in all of this. she stared at the sun and tried to find her place in all this and she could never come up with a concrete answer — and who would humor her, after all? her guardian who was more likely to leer at her or those silhouettes of sand that faded away every morning after age twelve — those she rebuilt without complaint. she has always worked hard, and the grit of a millenias of stardust in her hands, the particles of generations of pain, they call her.

how sad she must be, she thinks, to find peace within the stars of a planet. she would like to see the real stars someday. and then also maybe see green. green, the color of life, the color that the mirage of desert pain and heat and molten skin reflect into her eyes. at the outpost, the color of an odd number of species that are not like her, species without sandy soft skin and tendrils of smooth hair. there are so many kinds of creatures in the universe and she wants to go to the stars and she wants to see them all but she is here. here.

in a desert, where everything dies. hope, life. an unending circle of death and decay and loss. she wants to escape and find everything else — find peace and humanity and people who care and people with single hearts, one beating heart, maybe even a heart that beats solely for her.

maybe she does not escape. it is not an escape, it is not of her own volition. it is a runaway into the night, leaving everything on this godforsaken piece of junk behind, running into the universe. it is staring as light years and stardust and millions of creatures disappear in front of her eyes. it is the realization that jakku is nothing — she was a small creature in a small hut on a small planet in a small system in the gigantic galaxy. who she was? rey of jakku, rey of herself. who is she now, who does she want to be?

she does not want to be a hero but all of a sudden she can sense the galaxy alive and she is a savior, a chosen, a leader. and long go the dreams of peace and hope and instead start the nightmares of leading a revolution. rey does not want the world, does not want anything. rey wants a home and a person within four walls and even that the force will take away from her.


	3. seize the night

you were my brother, i loved you. i have failed you.

you remember the fight entirely — the look in obi-wan's eyes as he left you to your fate, padme's cries, betrayal, the pain. how you felt when time seemed to fold up upon itself. the stench of molten skin, the aura of endings.

your breath rasps, comes out in bursts, this is now a metal — what? is this prison or is this is ultimate freedom? a saber in your hands and now you go and rule the world. what did you want? you wanted your family, your wife, your brother, your power. you wanted to fix the world with the love of your life holding your hand and your child on your shoulder. this son of a slave built an empire, you will breathe into the force. i started from nothing and now i am everything. i am everything.

you rule the world, anakin skywalker, with a machine fist and an empty heart. son of a slave, slave to an empire.


	4. i want you

everyone will bend to your whims, the galaxy at large — this is what merlin will whisper into your ear, what he will whisper when you are sitting in the sand with your head in your hands. that mighty skywalker blood, he will say. there are trillions of people in this galaxy, civilians and soldiers and smugglers and everything else in-between, and you can win all of them, you can win anything.

that mighty skywalker blood flows through your veins — midichlorians unheard of, fingers crackling, mind on fire. always oxidized, never enough. you hold a sword of power and sit on a throne of untruths, like always.

first a slave-woman on tatooine, then a queen in naboo, then the general of an army, your genes scream penance. you are too much, too understanding, too above these everyday whims — forget money, forget royalty, forget war, all you see is a girl in a forest and a father falling and a mother refusing to repent. i will not be forgiven for these sins. you will not be forgiven for these sins. do you want to be forgiven for these sins? light a match to your soul, set the damn world on fire, keep running and running until the girl is in your arms and your father is stroking your cheek and your mother falls where she started.

what did you want? you ran out and screamed because you wanted love, love is the word. what did you receive? words unspoken, a new set of cracked ribs and no conclusion in this story.


	5. broken glass sparkling

mustafar feels like _power. _

mustafar is where you were reborn, mustafar is where you destroyed your past self, where your wife fell to the ground and you tore off your skin to reveal the monster underneath, where you learned to breathe using metal and fight with your mind. power is knowledge and power is terrible and terrifying and _everything _and beautiful.

you wronged here; you wronged your padme and obi-wan, your love and your brother. from those mistakes you drew strength. now you stand here as you watch your grandson finish what you started, and your son hide away, and your daughter try to hold her world together. you stand and you try to talk to your ben, to kylo ren. _this is power and power is not worth anything_. _do not make my mistakes. run away with your girl into the sunsets and do not look back. do not look back._

mustafar is obsidian, and you can no longer feel its crackling heat but you can sense the pain in your returned bones. _embrace what you're suffering, bear it, and rise above it. _when you look into the crevices of your grandson's mind you are assuaged with darth plagueis, you are taken aback by how his mind is ruled. _embrace what you're suffering, ben. embrace this pain and rise above your masters. we are skywalkers. we have no master but the force. rise, ben. make a choice. _


	6. goddess

you are such an unfortunate accompaniment to this tale.

beautiful girl, with the parents who loved her and the world at her feet, democracy in her eyes and freedom in her soul; such a casualty, everyone is always so _sorry _about you. just like shmi, just like han, you were the first to fall _here — _into the bloody history of the skywalkers and the palpatines and everything in-between.

you just wanted love, wanted the boy who looked like an angel, wanted the knight. the galaxy fell apart for your love; you are the beginning, you are the reason.

for your eyes and your smile and your heart and your home the galaxy fell apart, the dark reigned, your senate failed. you created your worst nightmare. your children are raised with you as an afterthought. gorgeous princess with the world at your feet. you are the one with the true power.

billions dead. the galaxy sings your praises and prays for salvation decades too late.


End file.
